


Neal, I’m not your father.

by Ethel09



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 07:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3801892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethel09/pseuds/Ethel09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why didn't Ellen tell Neal where the evidence box was when she saw him ? Why did James want so much the evidence box if he was guilty and knew there was nothing in it that could to clean his name ? Why such a far-fetched clue as the key ?<br/>Set four years after ‘Au Revoir’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neal, I’m not your father.

June entered the hospital room. The gaunt man who was lying in the bed, his eyes closed, was barely recognizable as the James Bennett she had met briefly a few years ago. The police officer at the door was barely necessary. It was clear that the man was dying, and it was a matter of days. 

She sat on the plastic chair near the bed and said, "You have asked to talk to me, Mr. Bennett?" 

The man opened his eyes. "Yeah. You’re the only person I know … that I could give this" he said, gesturing toward an envelope on his bedside table, “It’s a letter I wrote for Neal."

"Neal is dead," said June softly. "It’s been more than four years now." Even if James were Neal’s father, he’d proven that he wasn’t trustworthy. June had never told anyone her secret.

A cunning glint appeared in James’ eyes. Then he said in a very low whisper, "Yeah, they told me that… That’s why I asked for you. … Neal told me once that his only way to get free from the FBI was to die… I suppose he was right. But I’ll tell you my story nonetheless, if you agree. You may repeat it to… some friends of his who might be interested in it. And you’ll be able to testify that the letter is not a fake.”

"I’m listening, Mr. Bennett," said June, rather coldly. What could this man say that would excuse what he had done? He was dying, he had remorse. But the past couldn’t be undone.

James took a shallow breath and said, "First of all, you need to know that I’m not Neal’s father."

June rose. "I’m not here to listen to more lies. Your DNA profile proved that you were James Bennett."

"I am James Bennett, Mrs. Ellington. But I’m not Neal’s father. Ask agent Burke for my DNA profile to have it compared with Neal’s if you don’t believe me. Would you please sit down and listen to me? What reason would I have to lie now? Neal is dead, or so you say… and it’ll soon be my turn."

June sat down again and looked at the man, waiting for him to go on.  
"Not long after Kathryn – Ellen to you – and I started working as partners, we had an affair. Roisin found out and cheated on me in retaliation. She met a young artist in the neighborhood and slept with him several times when I was at work. Then he left her and moved to another area. She didn’t tell me. I thought Neal was my son. But Roisin had had a very strict Catholic upbringing. One night when she was drunk, she must have been overwhelmed by guilt about her "sin,” and she told me the truth. I ran like a madman out of the house and got drunk myself. " 

James stopped for a moment to catch his breath. 

"Two days later, I stole that money after a bust. I wanted it, not for my family as I told Neal, but to go away with Ellen, if she agreed. But I got caught, as you know, and then I had no other choice but to do what I was told by the Flynns. I started to spend most of my time at the station, or in bars. When I had had enough, I tried to break free from the Flynns’ clutches. You know the rest. "

"Where were you during all these years ? " asked June.

"After I testified against the Flynns I was placed into so-called witness protection, but I knew I wouldn’t stay alive for long unless I remained under Pratt’s radar. So I disappeared… I lived on the run for more than twenty years. I finally managed to find out where Sam lived and I went to see him. He still believed in my innocence. I was always able to play him like a violin…He gave me news of Neal he’d had from Ellen. He remembered him from when Neal was little. And he gave me Ellen’s email address, since he was about to retire." 

James paused, struggling for breath, then went on. 

"I contacted her pretending I was Sam. I told her that I had found new evidence against Pratt and that it was time for us to get our revenge. She’d have trusted Sam with her life. So it was not difficult to have her tell "Sam" where she currently lived, and that the evidence were hidden in the Empire State building.”

"We always wondered why she had the key made for Neal, but then just didn’t tell him where the box was when they talked…." said June. 

"Ah, but you’re assuming that Ellen had the key made," James said.

June stared at the man, who was looking back at her with a smug smile.

"YOU had the key made?! " She exclaimed. "But the cassette…."

"Well, I had a hand in the cassette as well."

"Neal always said that maybe it was’t Ellen who had made the key. That the whole thing didn’t make any sense."

James nodded, a faint sparkle in his eyes. "So the kid realized it couldn’t have been Ellen!"

"Of course," said June. "As soon as he recovered enough from the disappointment you had caused him. How could Ellen have put in the medallion, when Neal was three years old, a key featuring a view he would become familiar with twenty years later? But then, why did she make that cassette ?"

Without replying directly, James went on with his story.  
"I broke into Ellen’s home while she was out. I found many years of her journals. I stole the old ones, read them and put them back later. In one of them, there was something about a place Neal said he liked to go to watch the sun set over the city and drink some wine. So that’s the view I used later, when I decided to give Neal a clue, but not a too obvious one, of the box’s location. I found the cassette and took it as well, for there was Neal’s name written on it. Later, a friend helped me falsify a small part of the soundtrack. In the original tape, Ellen said that she would put some clues in the medallion that would lead Neal to an address in case he’d want to contact her, when he was old enough… She felt responsible for what had happened to him, because she thought she had been the cause of my becoming a dirty cop, and for the destruction of my family... Especially as I had never told her that Neal wasn’t mine. But Roisin wouldn’t talk to her, so she didn’t have any other way to be sure she could keep contact with Neal... I suppose she had planned to send the cassette and the medallion in two different packages, from two different addresses, for her own protection and Neal’s."

James looked exhausted now, but after another pause, he went on again.

"But then she was placed in witness protection in the same town as Neal’s mother, so she never sent the cassette and the medallion. She managed to never lose contact with Neal, until he ran away, even if Roisin didn’t want her in her house. I don’t know why she kept the cassette. Maybe in case she might need it some day. But when they met again, five years ago, she could never bring herself to tell Neal all the truth. Especially where the evidence was hidden. She knew that the evidence was not enough to have Pratt convicted, but she always hoped Sam would come up with some proof that would stick. "

"Ellen wanted to leave Neal some hope that I was innocent, as she hoped it herself. But above all, she had realized that Pratt, as a senator, had become too dangerous an adversary, even with Burke’s backup. But I didn’t have these qualms. I wanted Pratt. If the evidence was not enough to have him convicted, at least I could blackmail him, or destroy his political career. Then Ellen was killed, probably because Burke had looked her up in an FBI database or put her name in a report, and I was free to set up my plan." 

"But how did you put the key you had made in Ellen’s medallion? asked June. "And why send the cassette ? Why that scavenger-hunt game, why did you involve Neal? He was not your son and you knew where the evidence was."

"The answer to your first question is a bribe. I paid one of the marshals who had access to Ellen’s possessions after she died. I had stolen the cassette, but I couldn’t steal the medallion. She always had it around her neck. I had planned to get my hands on it one way or another and replace it with a copy when Ellen moved, but then Pratt had Ellen killed, and all I had to do was to get access to the medallion long enough to put the key in it."

"And why did I involve Neal? Because of Burke, of course. I knew that Roisin would never have told Neal the truth about his birth. And since she’s been in a convent for years, I was sure she wouldn’t interfere. When Sam had told me about Neal being Burke’s CI, I realized that this was my chance to get my revenge against Pratt at last. I would have the help of FBI resources to find the box. Ellen was about to move to another town. So one way or another, I’d soon have been free to contact Neal, posing as Sam. A very cautious, wary Sam."

"But why didn’t you simply come to tell agent Burke where the evidence was?"

"Because I didn’t know exactly where the box was under the floor. Ellen didn’t want to tell anyone, even Sam, until she saw a real possibility to bring Pratt down. And above all, because I wasn’t sure of what was in there. Ellen thought it wasn’t enough to have Pratt convicted, but I could at least blackmail him. Old scandals are never good for a political career. I hoped I could at least get some money from him, enough to start fresh. So I needed a plan in which I’d be the first to put my hands on that box. For that, I wanted to have time to ingratiate myself to Neal and Burke."

"I wanted also to give Pratt enough time to feel Burke breathing down his neck and to freak out. I hoped he’d make some mistake. And he did. First, he had Ellen killed by Flynn. Before, I had let the man see me watching Ellen’s house as well and follow me. I let him beat me up a little, until Neal and Mozzie arrived. I wanted Flynn to be caught by Burke. Because it caused Pratt to make his second mistake: he had Flynn killed, and Burke could make the link between senator Pratt and my former boss. Then Pratt followed our scavenger-hunt, as you said, and really played into my hand : he replaced Burke’s boss by a woman on his payroll, so that Burke couldn’t simply go and take the box, he had to deceive his new boss as well. Which meant he needed me and Neal."

"But nothing really happened as I had planned because that damn Mozzie replaced the contents of the box with some old postcards. And one of Pratt’s goons caught me and took me to Pratt. Burke interrupted us. It looked like Pratt was about to kill me, so I killed him first. There was a gun just laying there in front of me. It wasn’t the revenge I’d planned on, but it was a good one too."

"You used Neal, who believed you were his father," said June, her voice as sharp as a knife. "You used his friendship with a federal agent and you didn’t have any qualms about having the agent who had tried to help you pay for your crime."

"Come on, Mrs. Ellington," answered James with a faint smile. "Peter Burke is a smug, self-centered control freak who used Neal’s desire for a father figure. Having that brilliant kid looking up to him made him feel even more self-satisfied than he already was. He basked in it. He was putting Neal at risk all the time for the benefit of his own career. And you know that. Granted, I’m a cold bastard. That’s why I can recognize another bastard when I see one…"

"As for Neal, remember he was not my son. When I began that con, I had no feeling for him, none. I even resented him. I had taken care of him for three years, thinking that he was mine. And the funniest thing," added James with another, nasty smile, "is how everyone, especially the Burkes, began to say how much we looked like each other. Elizabeth said that we had the same way of giving meat to their dog, Burke that we had the same way of altering the truth (as any good con man does). I served Neal the same crap about our eyes! As if my eyes were anything like his, apart from the fact they’re blue! And he believed it, because he wanted it so badly." 

"You’re a monster!" exclaimed June.

"No, Mrs. Ellington. I’m a bastard all right, but not a monster. Even I came to like the kid. Who wouldn’t? I couldn’t tell him the truth the last time I saw him. I was sure he wouldn’t send the cops against his old man, but he might have done it otherwise, to save his precious Peter. I decided to confess now, because even though they caught me, I’m about to die; they won’t have time to try me for murder again. And I want Neal to know the truth. I know how badly he wanted his father to be an innocent man. Well, his true father certainly is. He became a rather famous sculptor under the name of Leo Sinclair. Tell him that, would you?"

"Neal is dead, Mr. Bennett," repeated June, who always had a hard time saying that sentence.

"Ah yes, you told me that… But you’ll tell his friends, won’t you?"

June felt a pang of fear. Had this dangerous, unscrupulous man guessed the truth? How? By what Neal had told him about dying to escape from the FBI? Or did he know something else?

She looked closely at him, but then he said in a very law whisper, "Even if Neal is dead, I had to say that to someone before I died. That I didn’t con my own son. I’ve been many things, but I’d never have done such a thing."

"I believe you," said June. "Neal’s closest friends might be interested in knowing your story. I’ll tell them," said June, taking the letter on the table. 

"Thank you," whispered James, closing his eyes. June rose slowly and went out of the room, without turning back, still in shock over what she had just learned. On second thought, she wasn’t afraid that James would talk, even if he knew that Neal was alive. If he wanted to harm Neal, what need would he have had to make her come to his bedside and tell her that story? Besides, who would believe the ramblings of a dying murderer?

***

Four days later, she was under the trees in the garden of Neal’s villa on the Aventine Hill in Rome. Beautiful copies of antique statues were perfectly set off by the well-trimmed boxwood and delicate flowerbeds. They could hear the murmur of the nearby fountain. Everything was too beautiful and peaceful for James’ sordid story, but June had come to tell it and so she did, giving James’ letter to Neal.

Maya, who had listened with great attention, looked at Neal lovingly and asked, “Now that you know who your father is, will you go to see him?"

Neal shook his head. "I don’t think so. What would that meeting change? He had a brief affair with my mother, then he left her. He may not even remember her. "

"I decided a few years ago that I don’t need to know my father, real or substitute, to know who I am." 

Despite his words, however, June thought she detected a note of relief, a tiny sigh of something akin to satisfaction, in Neal’s expression. She was glad she had been the one who has relayed that message bringing closure to another painful chapter of his past.

**Author's Note:**

> I was rather irritated by two scavenger hunts in White Collar’s plot. The one concerning Kate, and the one concerning the box. I thought they were both a rather cheap way to keep the suspense up. Because neither of them seemed to make any sense.  
> I tried to deal with the holes in Kate’s story in another fic.
> 
> About the box, first, how the key featuring a view Neal came to like when he was more than twenty could be hidden in the medallion since he was three ? Of course, Ellen could have added the key later. But then, had the medallion remained empty for years ? And why would Ellen have stalled that way when Neal asked questions, why didn’t she tell him where the evidence box was hidden immediately if she really intended him to know it? And why hadn’t she used the evidence against Pratt earlier? 
> 
> As for James not being Neal’s real father, I added that because I completely hated the idea that a father could lie to his son and manipulate his emotions the way James did. This makes him the most revolting character of the whole series, IMO. If he’s Neal’s father. I decided to imagine that he was not, as the story is far less sad that way.  
> I know that completely self-centered people can have sons that are a miracle of generosity, I know some, but James Bennett’s behavior was that of a complete sociopath. I didn’t want Neal’s father to be a sociopath. Besides, I found all what was said about the two of them looking like each other completely ridiculous.
> 
> I added that Neal’s mother was in a convent, because Neal being Neal, I couldn’t imagine him not keeping in touch with his mother, even if she hadn’t taken good care of him when he was a child. I imagined her as a very unbalanced woman, who found peace that way. I may elaborate about her in another story. 
> 
> I imagine that Ellen could have been Jame’s mistress, and that Neal’s mother knew it, because it helped as well to understand why, even if Ellen was in the same town, Neal had to fend for himself to the point he forged his own bus card to be in time at school, or was hanging around a pool hall at nine years old. She was a friendly presence, but could do little to help him in day-to-day life.
> 
> And again, many, many thanks to ayam, by beta reader, who this time not only pointed out my english mistakes, but helped me a lot as well with her questions, objections and suggestions concerning that whole mess of the key and the evidence box.


End file.
